To be fair Logain explained his ranking in the other forum and utilized the strengths of his own team when ranking who he wanted in division, so his are not a pure power ranking per se.

Also something I hope DH sees and responds to:

When it was you turn to make the 8th and 9th selection in the draft there were two teams left from the DH Star system with a 3-star ranking: mine and ash’s. With the 8th pick you selected me but with the 9th pick you skipped over ash and took badja. Now I know your draft board was followed, so the real question is why did you rank the 4-star badja team higher than the 3-star ash team on your board?

pretty simple...even though i think badja has a better team on paper...i still would rather have him in my division then ash...i think i bumped up seapilots too, even though he was a 3 star team, based on back court defense

it was brutal ranking teams after the first 10....i knew vance, sly, and felonius would be my last 3 but 11-17 was really tough....i didnt want to see any of those teams..including yours....i picked you first cause i dont think west is ready for prime time(and yea i know that sounds stupid...it probably is but my gut feelings on players have been right before so im trusting them here)

As far as West is concerned, like I said before I think this team is built for him. He has the fga/m ratio that is not only near the top of the 6-point tier but higher than many of the top usage tier players. For example your 12-13 Durant had .459 RL fga/m, I didn't dig too deep into the 8-point guys, but the 32.6 usage D Wade had a .488 ratio. This version of West has a ratio of .539. I know that comes with the negative of him dominating the ball for my team and he is my lowest efg guy, however that also means it is much harder to him to hit the individual penalty and he helps to keep the rest of my team out of the individual penalty.

I did see how the one level down West kind of under-performed for you in the ODL, and maybe this one will fall short as well. But my theory is that this West is much like Jerry Lucas, the same Lucas that ALWAYS seems to outperform his advanced stats, because his RL stats are off the chart for anyone in his usage tier. And we KNOW that the sim uses factors like fga/min and poss/min when deciding how each team's ball is distributed, it goes beyond the simple usage stat they give us.

It's funny because there is a 2point usage guy that I've used numerous times who had 130-150 RL threes. In the sim he ALWAYS goes over 200, and I just could not figure out why, until I started looking at things like fga/min and realized that his is over .425, putting him on the level of a Durant even though his usage tier is lower he still gets his shots because the sim utilizes fga/min.

I'd rather be in this division than the tricky division or the Atlantic, and badja may make a solid 4th competitor, but the other two teams look like great matchups for you, me and sly. And the 16 games I get to play against two teams as good as yours and sly's will give me a great read on West and where (or even if) I should be ranking him on my board for future leagues.

Posted by natenoy on 5/21/2013 8:11:00 PM (view original):Understood dh, I would have ranked Ash pretty low on my list as well.

As far as West is concerned, like I said before I think this team is built for him. He has the fga/m ratio that is not only near the top of the 6-point tier but higher than many of the top usage tier players. For example your 12-13 Durant had .459 RL fga/m, I didn't dig too deep into the 8-point guys, but the 32.6 usage D Wade had a .488 ratio. This version of West has a ratio of .539. I know that comes with the negative of him dominating the ball for my team and he is my lowest efg guy, however that also means it is much harder to him to hit the individual penalty and he helps to keep the rest of my team out of the individual penalty.

I did see how the one level down West kind of under-performed for you in the ODL, and maybe this one will fall short as well. But my theory is that this West is much like Jerry Lucas, the same Lucas that ALWAYS seems to outperform his advanced stats, because his RL stats are off the chart for anyone in his usage tier. And we KNOW that the sim uses factors like fga/min and poss/min when deciding how each team's ball is distributed, it goes beyond the simple usage stat they give us.

It's funny because there is a 2point usage guy that I've used numerous times who had 130-150 RL threes. In the sim he ALWAYS goes over 200, and I just could not figure out why, until I started looking at things like fga/min and realized that his is over .425, putting him on the level of a Durant even though his usage tier is lower he still gets his shots because the sim utilizes fga/min.

I'd rather be in this division than the tricky division or the Atlantic, and badja may make a solid 4th competitor, but the other two teams look like great matchups for you, me and sly. And the 16 games I get to play against two teams as good as yours and sly's will give me a great read on West and where (or even if) I should be ranking him on my board for future leagues.

doesnt the pace of the era he played in have something to do with his rl fga/m being higher?

Dh, yes it was EVERYTHING to do with it. One of the reasons the 18.5 usage Wilt is still at 26.6ppg after 59 games in an OL for me right now. Also how the 16.5 usage Lucas averaged 17.1ppg for me in the most recent ODL. No, these guys will not generally reach their RL numbers in some areas, but their fga/min and poss/min ratios bring an added bonus if you are trying to run uptempo.

Ash, that's the season of West I had intended to use when I drafted him and the one DH just used in this ODL, but the 6-point one I am about to use instead is the one I used with the 6-point Granger in the ODL before this one, those two with Lucas carried me to the finals where eleibo took me down, but I was able to take out Vance and Tar on the way to the finals.

This West will likely score 26-28 ppg. My backup PG is over 34% ast like Deron Williams and the tradeoff between the two seasons of West is you give up ast% and a little efg for more fga/min. more poss/min, a lower pf/rate, a higher pf draw rate, and a lower tov%, and about 3 more mpg. Plus as I've also mentioned there seems to be some kind of end of game barrier that only guys with 6-points of usage or higher can pass, i.e., they perform better in the last two minutes.

Oh, btw I waited until the 6th round to take both West and Granger in that one, thus the team name 6th Round Usage, which can work in a low cap league like the ODL, in this league I'd never try that because the league efg is 3-4 points higher and the D is much better because of the extra $5mill in cap space.

Vance: "I hear you dh555 but natenoy in one of the all or nothing cats man. He will never play half court because of all those extra 3 point shots that uptempo generates."

Actually Vance for that ODL team mentioned above I actually DID switch to HC for the playoffs. I HATE using HC though because those extra possessions are usually a net positive IMO. Tried using HC for my current ODL Kobe team in the ODL for nine games, I went 4-5 and Kobe only averaged like 35ppg and my team scoring ave dropped like a rock, that move clearly cost Kobe the 40.0ppg (had 39.9 ppg) I wanted when the season started.

I KNOW the goal here is winning, but I'm fool enough to get some enjoyment from the stats that are generated as well.

Also, of my 8 rotation guys 6 of them have a PER% of 13 or more, and the 13 is West. I'm only going to get so many shots out of Korver and if I want to maximize the odds of his three's going in then I think uptempo is my only option.

I fully hear you on the tov% argument, West comes in a shade under 13% and I KNOW it will be 15-16% in the sim, and Deron's is much higher than I would like at 17.7% (at least it's not over 20 like a Stockton), but Daugherty is also under 13% and Korver is under 10%.

And watch how many shots I can squeeze out of Chandler at close to 70%, I know sly thinks I'm using the wrong Chandler and I really spent a long time deciding between the 70D much better rebounder pretty solid efg% and the 90D weaker rebounder insane efg% versions. In the end I decided that the 90D was more important and the fact that Rodman and Korver have low usage and that Chandler has a higher Paint% than anyone on my team means I should hopefully be maximizing the number of shots he takes, also the 90D became critical because of Daugherty being sub-50, not sure the 70D would be enough to cover the power inside scorers that so many teams here have.

One final note on West,and why I think my team will be so good at home, West will likely take between 30-33% of my shots when he is on the floor, but the other 67-70% of my shots are still being taken by players that have a weighted efg of over 56%.

This is why I think my team will approach 30 home wins. There are a lot of factors but at its core it's about efg%. This is a 52-53% efg league, and from what I have seen of home court advantage the most critical part of home court advantage in the sim is that a team generally shoots 2-3% better at home than it does on the road. SO, say my team is a 54-55% efg team in general and at home it shoots 56-57%, while my opponents are shooting 50-51% at best. When a team shoots 6-7% better than you do then it's pretty hard to beat them, yes there are a lot more factors, but just take a quick glance across the leagues you are in right now and you'll see that a lot of the teams that dominate at home do so because of shooting, and efg%.

One quick point here nate. You have apparently weakened your rebounding by taking the 90 def Chandler. I recall that he's only good for about 25 mpg. So Rodman starts at PF and Chandler is on the bench which is okay but IMO could be better with the other 70 D Chandler season. That means that you are actually going to play Korver at SF for at least 24 mpg. Is that correct? Consistent rebounding at the SF position at about 24 CREB% or better all game long is one of the major keys to success in this league nate. Plus, Williams is a very week rebounder and West is a pretty weak rebounder at SG in this league. So boards won't come from the guard positions. My starting guards this season are at about 31 CREB%. Now factor in Daugherty at over 30 mpg and this team will lose the rebounding battle on most nights. I haven't done the math and I know that this isn't the best way to calculate rebounding success in this league but . . . isnt your team's rebound total at about 4500 or less now? IMO you need about 4900 rebounds or more to really compete in this league. But please correct me if I am wrong about your teams rebounding total. I'm guessing by your Chandler choice and which Kover you are using for how many mpg.

Vance, Chandler is 32mpg, Rodman plays 11mpg there, Daugherty the other 5. So Korver goes 10mpg at SG and 18 at SF.

RL total boards for 8 rotation guys just over 4,600. I'll also likely play a little with Rodman's minutes, and play him 44 or so v. the great rebounding teams and 36 or so against the weaker teams.

For the 30mpg Rodman is at SF he has a dominate advantage on almost everyone, so I expect that to give me a boards bump as well. It is a little light but the weighted ave of my orb% is like 37 and dreb% is 87, not one of the better teams but far from a bottom feeder.

Sly at first I was thinking that I had to use Daugherty at C since Sabonis is only 90% at PF and I don't trust the sim to keep a 4-point usage big on the floor at all times to avoid the team usage penalty. And that's exactly why I decided to take a 4-point usage backup PG.

So now even if Korver, Chandler, and Rodman and their 2 combined usage points are on the floor together I will have a 4-point usage PG and either a 6-point West or Sabonis/Daugherty. So yea, I very well may go:

On the flip side nate what happens when you have too much usage on the floor when the SIM engine decides to put Sabonis, Daugherty, West and your 4 usage point backup PG in the game? That equates to a bad mix of wasted offense that won't be used. I learned this from the soon to be greatest owner in SIM basketball history ashamael. You always want to keep the same level of usage point players at the same positions together. That way you get the optimum performance out of your entire team. Flip flopping the C postion between Chandler and Sabonis is a bad idea. It's also a bad idea to have the 4 usage point Daugherty at PF for over 30 mpg and then have the .5 and 1 usage point Chandler and Rodman as his backups. Its the same way with West and Korver. Believe me the SIM engine won't make the best substitutions and there will be a lot of minutes with the wrong players on the court at the same time.

Extremely good points Vance, I'll run some tests and see if I can find any differences. I may stick with the Daugherty/Sabonis C combo and not try to get Chandler in there, because ur right I would be more likely to have 18.5 to 19 usage points on the court by mixing the guys.

I know the common opinion is that the sim matchup uses a different engine than the actual sim, but I really think that if you set a team's tempo and rotation then choose it for the matchup that it gives you a pretty accurate read if you run it at least 30 times. I have found that the results I get from testing my teams generally comes pretty close to the end result.

It was a lot more useful when the last $52 league teams were still available for matchups, so I've been using the best teams from the $52 cap PPL to try to get a good read. Btw I ran 30 home and 30 road games against the best teams there and went 28-2 at home. Less 3-point shooting from those teams, but there are still some really good teams there to compare to.

One more note Vance, in the PPL there are 3 teams with at least 40 wins after the first 60 games.

Ash is 42-18 and 26-6 at home
jcred5 is 42-18 and 25-4 at home
I'm 41-19 and 24-5 at home

That league does not have quite the parity at this one because it's a progressive and things like Jordan and Moses missing a year are happening right now, but I think it shows that the better teams can easily reach 30 home wins.

On the flip though, for me, I'm generally bringing in lower usage guys (except my backup PG) because I'm already starting more usage than is probably optimal (18), which I anticipate will help my starters reach/exceed their numbers.